Wood of Life

The February President's challenge is lidded boxes. I've had a few ideas in my head but I've run out of time. This was not my intended finished product but it's pretty close in spirit.










This spherical box is made from a portion of a Lignum Vitae (translated as Wood of Life) blank I purchased at the local Woodcraft. It was actually labeled as Olive but I knew that wasn't right. The employee at the register agreed that it was Lignum Vitae and agreed to double check on the price. Oddly it wasn't a size available in the catalog or in the computer so he had to check with the owner. They ended up ended up taking $15 off the price marked for Olive. Even so it is still quite expensive, about $40 a board foot.




I also made a matching ring stand out of a different piece of Lignum Vitae. I've demonstrated my technique for turning these rings before, including this past Saturday at the Southern Arizona Woodturners Association, SAZWA.









I intended to hand chase threads to get the box to thread together but my attempts to hand chase were less than successful. In the end I abandoned that idea and went with a standard tenon and recess joint.









I also worked on sanding a 3 piece hollow form set in Maple Burl. I turned these pieces throughout the day at the Woodcraft event a couple weeks ago.










There's a U.S. quarter for scale. These are the first turnings from my big burl score last year about this time. I still need to do some more sanding, I'd have much less hand work had I sanded them in the lathe while they were being turned but I always say that people want to watch somebody turn, not watch somebody sand.

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